


Anamnesis

by historymiss



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: These are the things Silas owns.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	Anamnesis

Silas has very few material possessions. In strict keeping with the tenants of the Eighth House, the things he personally owns can be counted on the fingers of one hand: two sets of bleached linen robes, one set in undyed wool, for colder climes, a bone signet ring inset with mirrored glass, and one carved wooden horse, unpainted and unvarnished but with something vital in its spare lines.

It is the only item on this very small list that Silas does not remember acquiring. He has had it for too long.

Instead, Silas knows, the same way he knows his name, that it was presented to him as a gift for his second birthday. That Colum Asht carved it with slow deliberation and a hope that has never shown itself on his adult face.

He knows that this is a horse, because Colum cantered the little figure across his crib and reared it with a soft ‘whoa’ to make the owlish heir to the Eighth blink and stretch out pudgy hands.

He knows it is the traditional mount of a cavalier from the tales that Make their way even to the Eighth, long ago cavaliers and their necromancers in an age where neither of them were machines of war.

He knows it is a gift because of the way Colum’s eyes slide towards it on the shelf next to Silas’ psalter. How he dusts it so assiduously, soft cloth catching on the rough wood.

All these things Silas Octakiseron knows, as deeply as he knows the prayers and rites of the Eighth and the halls of his home; as surely as he knows that Colum Asht is a heart created to beat for him. It is a calm, unexamined certainty that predates faith, provides the rock for it to be built upon instead.

He brings the horse with him to Canaan House.

After they speak to that cavalier from the Ninth, Silas throws it into the ocean.


End file.
